Lois Florreich
| Lois Florreich | |||
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| All-American Girls Professional Baseball League | |||
| Pitcher / Utility | |||
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Born: April 29, 1927 Webster Groves, Missouri |
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Died: September 11, 1991 (aged 64) Sea of Cortez, Mexico |
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| debut | |||
| 1943 | |||
| Last appearance | |||
| 1950 | |||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Kathleen Lois Florreich [Flash] (April 29, 1927 – September 11, 1991) was a pitcher and utility who played from 1943 through 1950 for three different teams of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m), 140 lb., Florreich batted and threw right-handed. She was born in Webster Groves, Missouri.
By the time she pitched her final game in 1950, Lois Florreich had been selected three times as an All-Star in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. A member of three championship teams, she set an all-time season record for lowest earned run average, twice led the league in strikeouts, added single-season titles in complete games and innings pitched, three times won 20 or more games, and also tied an all-time record for most stolen bases in a single game. In its 12 years of history, the AAGPBL evolved through many stages, including shifting from underhand to sidearm to overhand pitching, but Florreich easily made the transition in each one of the changes.
By 1943 a new All-American Girls Softball League was formed, playing a hybrid form of softball and baseball that never really became baseball until overhand pitching began in 1948. The league, which started largely to provide entertainment for baseball fans whose beloved heroes had gone off to World War II, would eventually shift gears and become the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and was dissolved at the end of the 1954 season. About 500 girls attended the initial call. Of these, only 280 were invited to the final try-outs at Wrigley Field in Chicago, where 60 of them were chosen to become the first women to ever play professional baseball. The 60 players were placed on the rosters of four fifteen-player teams based in Rockford of Illinois, South Bend of Indiana, and Racine and Kenosha of Wisconsin. Lois Florreich survived the final cut to become one of the original players signed by the league. She was also one of 13 players hailed from Missouri who made the league in its 12 years of existence.
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